The Federal Housing Finance Agency, overseer of the troubled, government-backed mortgage giants announced Friday a new pay program that slashes CEO pay at Fannie and Freddie by nearly 75 percent, wipes out annual bonuses, and sets a target pay range for their chief executives at $500,000.

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FHFA acting director Edward DeMarco calling the changes a product of “rethinking what it means to be the CEO of a company that has been in conservatorship for so long and has a long and uncertain path in front of it,” adding that the new pay is well below what a top executive could earn in the private sector.

DeMarco emphasized that the changes, which also include deferred salary based on a new series of performance goals, were months in the making and tied to new performance goals he’s set for the mortgage companies. But he also acknowledged the pay cuts are in response to Congressional complaints that outgoing Fannie and Freddie executives last year took home seven-figure salaries — plus bonuses — even though both agencies needed more than $100 billion from taxpayers to stay afloat after the housing market collapsed, and are still in conservatorship.

The issue has been a headache for DeMarco since reports last fall that Fannie and Freddie’s top managers were still paid at Wall Street levels despite pledges by FHFA, the office tasked with keeping them solvent, that it would adjust them after news that former Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines and others received millions of dollars in pay and bonuses. Corporate records show the FHFA approved a total of $12.79 million in bonus pay for 10 executives who met a list of relatively modest performance targets linked to modifying mortgages in jeopardy of foreclosure.

Meanwhile, most housing analysts say Fannie and Freddie have helped only a portion of the estimated 7 million homeowners at risk of foreclosure.

At a hearing, Republican and Democratic blasted DeMarco for both the bonuses and performance lag. DeMarco’s argument — that private-sector pay would attract badly-needed, top-tier talent — largely fell on deaf ears, and the House Financial Services Committee moved a bill that would put Fannie and Freddie employees on par with other government pay rates.